Blackwater Gulch: Rebels and Reinforcements Kickstarter

[TheAuldGrump]

So, Tranquility Crew has now been moved up to the 40k stretch goal!

 

Yep. Not a guarantee they'll be unlocked, but it is look a lot more possible now.

 

I was hoping those clowns would be moved to the end though, as I'm not keen on them but I am on several of the other sets that may very well end up being out of reach.

Heh, I am looking at those clowns for the Gibsonton segment of my Florida Fallout game - for the Freak Show.

 

The Auld Grump

 

That game sounds epic! Which rules set are you using?

Spycraft 2.0 - and using the 'War, War Never Changes' article in their Wiki.

 

Despite the name Spycraft 2.0 is a great game for a whole lot of action genres- with campaign qualities that can be plugged in to change the lethality, grittiness, and complexity.

 

One of the expansions that I use for this and a Delta Green game is Fragile Minds - which add sanity rules. Not the sanity point system from Call of Cthulhu, more like a mental critical table. (Officially named 'The Table of *SPROING!*' after folks on their forums kept using that term.)

 

The party is working for a Vault in Florida that is opening its doors - a rare Vault that was not a sociological experiment. The team is to explore the areas surrounding, establish relations with local settlements, pacify as necessary, and forge trade routes.

 

The Cthulhu Mythos is active in my Fallout Florida setting - including a bunch of not-quite-super-mutants infected with U.A.V. (Underwater Adaptation Virus). Funny thing, the government has had the U.A.V. culture in storage since the 1928 raid on a Massachusetts town.... And the folks turned into Underwater Adaptation Mutants sometimes have very strange dreams....

 

The Freak Show is set in Gibsonton - a town of gypsies and circus folks in the real world, and retirement community for a number of circus freaks. The official mayor of the town is also the official Ringmaster, three super-mutants and a Behemoth are clowns, roustabouts, and pack carriers.

 

But something is... odd? about the folks in town. Sometimes the super-mutants begin losing their tempers, then they get a distant look and calm down again.

 

The Mayor and the leader of the gypsies get that same look on occasion, sometimes followed by a subtle change of expression - almost a smirk....

 

The real Ringmaster is something very much akin to The Master in the old Fallout game - with mind control and mind reading abilities. That said - it only steps in to calm the super-mutants and to talk to the leaders of the town. It is not trying for domination. It wants the Circus back up and running, and knows exactly how much time it has before its twisted body gives up on it. On the road the Ringmaster will be known as The Thing In The Jar. Something that looks like a tentacled brain in a very large glass vat, with green, amber, and red lights. As the Circus travels the green lights will become fewer and fewer, being replaced by amber and then red.... The Ringmaster intends to die on the road, after seeing the circus resurrected.

 

The Freakshow are good folks. Just... freaky.

 

Missions for the Freakshow include getting the rolls for a Mighty Wurlitzer and, later, a trip into the darkened tunnels below Dinseyworld to retrieve medical supplies to give The Ringmaster another two years of life.

 

There are several threads that lead to the Darkened Tunnels, including one titled 'The Guns of Splash Mountain'. (Guns of the Navarone, with Enclave as the Nazis.) The tunnels are dark and ghoul infested. Deep inside is Walt Disney on Ice.... (An urban legend from my childhood.)

 

Taking up too much off topic room....

 

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

I'd be happy to address the length of our Kickstarter project.

 

The typical KS project run for 30 to 45 days. It has a week of excitement when the early adopters jump on at the beginning and it has a week of excitement when the latecomers jump on at the end. In the middle, there are two ti three weeks of slack time when the backers trickle in and the project runners get all stressed out and anxious wondering if they'll make it or not.

 

What we're hoping to do is cut down that anxious and slow middle period. The projects we're running now (Ruse, Nothing Personal, and Blackwater Gulch: Rebels & Reinforcements) are all 21 days long. Our goal in 2013 will be to cut the project time down to 15 days. This may result in lower individual results, but we're hoping it will mean we can run more project and get more games and minis and accessories into production faster.

Good luck with that, but I am afraid that you may have cut out the 'give them our money!' part instead - I will not be able to join this KS because it is too short - so you have lost at least one person that would have joined.

 

Good luck with it though.

 

The Auld Grump

 

Yeah, I agree with the common consumer decision surrounding Kickstarters: Individuals invest as their budgets and paychecks allow. Reducing the time period dramatically will also dramatically cut into potential profits because many like to see how some projects develop over time, releasing the first couple stretch goals (assuming there are any), or checking to see how far a project is from their base funding goal. Every little thing affects possible future backers, and reducing that exploration/money making/concept revelation time not only affects the number of backers but the number of backers who will actually see the project.

 

Remember the moral of the tale, "Tortoise vs. the Hare:" Speed isn't everything. A month is a perfectly acceptable amount of to attract backers, generate money, and see how far a project can progress. The multiple million dollar plus projects is proof of that. Speed may not be the winning formula, but product quality certainly is.

For folks on a biweekly pay schedule the standard Kickstarter is two pay periods, with time to plan it into the next pay period.

 

For folks on a weekly pay schedule it gives time to save up enough moneys to make a worthwhile pledge.

 

And Black Friday drops right into this one - a lot of folks won't have the money. They will be spending their moneys on Christmas.

 

This may be an experiment, but it strikes me as a rather badly planned one.

 

The Auld Grump

[dariustad]

I wish I could sign up for your game!

 

Back on topic.... Westerns are awesome!

 

"How 'bout some more beans, Mr. Taggart?"

[Orlando_the_Technicoloured]

Most sucessfull KS in the mini line are around 30 (but they so show a dramatic fall off in pledges in the middle)

 

The ones I've seen on KS & Indiegogo that were longer (45 or 60 days) really struggled so that's clearly too long

 

I guess well see if 21 days is too short, although being so close to Xmas will muddy the waters a bit (but if the slump is missing it might just be the way to go)

[GangfightGames]

I just waned to say Howdy. Blackwater Gulch is my game :) David has already covered the specifics about the campaign but I just wanted to chime in.

 

Like he said, the goal of the new campaign is to get new models done, not to sell the old ones. However, there's a bunch of folks out there who missed the original campaign. I was thinking we would do one of those campaign pledge manager sites and open it up to the public like some other campaigns do, so new people can get in on the old campaign, but instead I figured it would be better to push forward with the new campaign and have the original starter sets listed there too, so they are essentially just add-on items. So for example if you want the Widowmakers, but also want the Clancy Gang, you can pledge $60 and get both. You don't have to pledge for the old items if you already ordered them in the previous campaign, just pledge for what you want :)

 

We covered the "staples" in the first campaign with outlaws, lawmen, Mexicans and Native Americans, so some of these new gangs are more for fun, especially the Flying Zarconis. I was originally basing it on the HBO show Carnivalle, but it evolved a lot in the design stage. As the gang grows we'll have more "main attraction" folks as the gang's professionals, and the henchmen will all be clowns :) And the Tranquility Crew will also get plenty of extra members too.. some of the crew that you might expect but also some others, like Rosemary, the captain's sometimes-ex-wife or Muskratt, an Irishman who helps them find odd (and nefarious) jobs around town. The plan for each gang is to have a 5-man starter set and three 3-man "support packs" with extra members. But there's no real factions in the gang, so if you want you can mix and match characters from any of the sets and make your gang unique.

 

If we can get up over $90k, we'll be adding a lot of 3-man support packs for all gangs and a whole lot more bonus figures like Ashford Campbell the Monster Hunter with a double barreled remmington, or the Lonely Rider and his lifelong indian friend. But if we don't, it will still serve as a roadmap for future releases. Doing well so far, just over $4000 after like 20 hours :)

 

About the timing, yes I agree it's not ideal. But, I made the decision to do it now because of how long it takes to get everything done. It's not just sculpting and casting, but pro-painting and printing, and you can't do 1 without the other. So, if we waited until February or March, that means there'd be no new releases for the game until next fall at the earliest. The folks at Game Salute are hard at work getting everything finished so we can get the original models out to the original backers as soon as we can.

 

Oh and one last thing, Patrick Keith may not be doing new figures for this campaign. He did 2 of the older ones, Mickey Finn and Jacob Sparks of the Clancy Gang. But, he said he might be too busy with his Bombshell Babes to help out right now. It won't stop me from asking again when the time comes though :)

 

Anyway, thanks everyone for your interest. I'll be happy to answer any questions about the gangs (old and new) and the game, but David will probably have better answers about the logistical stuff :)

 

Tim

[Darsc Zacal]

That's too bad about Patrick Keith, those Widowmakers would have been right up his alley, but then I am also a backer of his Bombshell Babes kickstarter and I do want him to take his time and do a bangup job on those... So I guess I can't be too disappointed. It'll all work out in the end. :)

 

$2000 a day isn't too bad, but that daily average will have to be more than doubled for that $90,000+ goal to be reached in the next 21 days.

[GangfightGames]

Fingers are crossed :)

[Niranth]

I'd be happy to address the length of our Kickstarter project.

 

The typical KS project run for 30 to 45 days. It has a week of excitement when the early adopters jump on at the beginning and it has a week of excitement when the latecomers jump on at the end. In the middle, there are two ti three weeks of slack time when the backers trickle in and the project runners get all stressed out and anxious wondering if they'll make it or not.

 

What we're hoping to do is cut down that anxious and slow middle period. The projects we're running now (Ruse, Nothing Personal, and Blackwater Gulch: Rebels & Reinforcements) are all 21 days long. Our goal in 2013 will be to cut the project time down to 15 days. This may result in lower individual results, but we're hoping it will mean we can run more project and get more games and minis and accessories into production faster.

Good luck with that, but I am afraid that you may have cut out the 'give them our money!' part instead - I will not be able to join this KS because it is too short - so you have lost at least one person that would have joined.

 

Good luck with it though.

 

The Auld Grump

 

Yeah, I agree with the common consumer decision surrounding Kickstarters: Individuals invest as their budgets and paychecks allow. Reducing the time period dramatically will also dramatically cut into potential profits because many like to see how some projects develop over time, releasing the first couple stretch goals (assuming there are any), or checking to see how far a project is from their base funding goal. Every little thing affects possible future backers, and reducing that exploration/money making/concept revelation time not only affects the number of backers but the number of backers who will actually see the project.

 

Remember the moral of the tale, "Tortoise vs. the Hare:" Speed isn't everything. A month is a perfectly acceptable amount of to attract backers, generate money, and see how far a project can progress. The multiple million dollar plus projects is proof of that. Speed may not be the winning formula, but product quality certainly is.

For folks on a biweekly pay schedule the standard Kickstarter is two pay periods, with time to plan it into the next pay period.

 

For folks on a weekly pay schedule it gives time to save up enough moneys to make a worthwhile pledge.

 

And Black Friday drops right into this one - a lot of folks won't have the money. They will be spending their moneys on Christmas.

 

This may be an experiment, but it strikes me as a rather badly planned one.

 

The Auld Grump

I am paid monthly and this one comes on the heals of other hobby expenditures. I really like the minis and see them also used in Deadlands campaigns, but I won't have any disposable income before this finishes up.

[Darsc Zacal]

I am paid monthly and this one comes on the heals of other hobby expenditures. I really like the minis and see them also used in Deadlands campaigns, but I won't have any disposable income before this finishes up.

 

Seems to be the case with a number of people. I wonder if the creators of the project could do a pledge management program like some other kickstarters have done. Where you could increase your pledge after the kickstarter has ended. Might give folks the extra couple of weeks they need to come up with the funds. In the meantime those who don't have the money right now could pledge $1 as a kind of placeholder to mark them as a backer.

[GangfightGames]

We will probably end up doing something like a Pledge Manager website like other campaigns do. We were going to make one for the last campaign, but I screwed up and made the old shipping options to complex for it to handle :) Plus we figured instead of trying to tack new people on to the tail end of the old campaign we would be better offering the original sets as add-ons in the new campaign, so folks that missed the first one can still get the original miniatures at the discounted Kickstarter rate ($30 vs the $35 retail price).

 

Anyway if we open up the pledge manager to the public then yeah anyone can join in later, but we wouldn't be able to unlock new stuff.. I think that will only be able to happen in the campaign. Off to a great start though, so far half way funded in about 24 hours :)

[Seamus]

Hi All...My name is David MacKenzie and I'm the Springboard Administrator running the new Blackwater Gulch: Rebels & Reinforcements project on Kickstarter.

 

If I can answer any questions or provide any information about the project, please feel free to ask.

Hi,

 

The two things I would like to see before making up my mind to pledge on this are

1) High quality pictures of the of the existing models, and of the unpainted minis as well as showing them painted. The pictures I can see on the Blackwater Gulch website aren't great quality and only show the painted models.

2) Independent reviews or feedback from people who have played the game. Are you aware of any such reviews?

 

To be honest, this project is falling quite close to the winter solstice, so there's a fair chance I won't pledge anyway, but at the moment I'm still on the fence.

 

Thank you,

 

Seamus.

[GangfightGames]

Hey Seamus, here are some pics :) I don't have my painted gangs at the moment, as I just sent them to Game Salute for a special demo game, but here are a few figures. These are production minis (not masters) and haven't been filed or cleaned up in any way. I just played with the levels in Photoshop to try and get the details to show up better.

 

 

Next here are pro-painted pics of Mickey Finn and John Blackwood. These were painted by Golem Painting Studio.

 

 

 

As far as reviews, there haven't been many since the minis haven't been released yet. I found a couple from folks that used other minis to play the game with the downloadable rulebook

 

http://diceoflegends.blogspot.com/2012/09/ryan-and-i-had-our-second-game-of.html

http://cowboyminiatures.blogspot.com/2012/07/blackwater-gulch.html

 

Hope that helps :)

[recruittons]

Wow, I'll say I'm sufficiently impressed with the quality of the unpainted minis that, though my pledge had previously been tentative, I'm now dead-set on getting a least 1 starter from you folks!

[ratsmitglied]

I'm seriously considering joining this one....if only to pick up the figure case as that is a damn good deal (normally the postage is more than the figure case!)

 

It helps that the figures are pretty good, but I have to hold off at the moment, a few other costs that I have coming due between now and the end of the kickstarter that until I know what these are I won't know if I have the spare funds...

 

BTW, in terms of seeing larger images of the miniatures, each of the gang descriptions in update #2 includes a link to a larger copy of the image, so it is well worth clicking on those links...

[GangfightGames]

Yeah, the cases are really nice. They're small ones though, not like BattleFoam's usual big sized ones. They're the perfect size to hold a couple of gangs. In fact if we unlock every mini, you could probably hold our entire lineup in 1 bag, with some room to spare :)